Yet that evening Mike Gatting, on behalf of the England and Wales Cricket Board, headed for Taunton rather than Southampton to present Lancashire with their first outright Championship since 1934. Now the fear for Giles must be that he will miss out to Moores again when Gatting's former Middlesex and England team-mate Paul Downton, in his role as managing director of England Cricket, makes his final decision.

Both are due to be interviewed this week by a three-man panel comprising Downton, the ECB chief executive, David Collier, and Gordon Lord, the former Worcestershire batsman who is now English cricket's head of elite coach development.

There are known to be at least three other contenders – Mark Robinson, the former Yorkshire seamer who succeeded Moores at Sussex; Nottinghamshire's director of cricket, Mick Newell; and Trevor Bayliss, an experienced Australian who has previously coached Sri Lanka.

The involvement of Lord would seem to confirm the suspicion that the ECB is keen to appoint a product of its own substantial investment in coaching, just as it did when Moores was promoted from his position as the director of the National Academy in Loughborough to replace Duncan Fletcher in early 2007 – when England were also reeling from a 5-0 whitewash in Australia.

Both Robinson and Newell have excellent records, with two Championships apiece, and have taken charge of England Lions tours – Robinson earlier this year in Sri Lanka. But with England in such a mess and the spotlight so fierce, it would be a major surprise if the ECB takes a punt on a relative rookie in terms of international cricket. Informed sources have suggested that as they did in that 2011 Championship race, Giles and Moores are going head to head.

When news of Flower's resignation leaked in late January, Giles was installed as odds-on favourite and the job seemed to be his to lose. He had been earmarked as the ECB's chosen successor when he was appointed to take charge of England's 50-over and Twenty20 teams in September 2012, having underlined his coaching and man-management abilities by reviving Warwickshire from the bitter disappointment of their near miss to Lancashire by leading them to the title the following year – when Moores' champions were relegated.

Unlike Moores, Giles had international playing experience, ensuring respect from former team-mates, either those then playing, such as Kevin Pietersen, or working in the media, such as Michael Vaughan.

The modest early record of his England teams was mostly accepted as a consequence of Flower making Test cricket the priority before consecutive Ashes series, and Giles heaped up more credit with a run to the final of the Champions Trophy on home soil last June. It was only this winter, either side of Flower's departure, that things started to go wrong. He was unable to turn back the Australia tide in the 50-over and Twenty20 series that followed England's Ashes rout, and then the predictable failure of a makeshift squad at the World T20 in Bangladesh ended in humiliation by the Netherlands.

Moores, meanwhile, managed to sit tight and keep his counsel, only confirming his interest in the job after he had been outed on the shortlist – and even then, subtly letting it be known that he had been approached to apply. He was also happy to acknowledge that he had "made mistakes", "learned a lot" and there were "definitely things we could have tackled differently". But there is also an argument that he might not need to change too much as this time he will inherit a more receptive dressing room.

He was done no favours in 2007 when he inherited one captain, Vaughan, who led a collection of senior players for whom Fletcher had been a key influence, and after that had to work with Pietersen, which was never a meeting of minds. It is much easier to see him forming an effective partnership with Alastair Cook, the pair having worked together on a Lions tour before both were promoted to England duty. It was also Moores who gave responsibility to Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson as new leaders of the England attack, having dumped Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard, and he also worked well with Matt Prior and Ian Bell.

But Anderson stressed, when praising Moores for the "energy" and "technical stuff" he would bring to the dressing room, that he was not advocating him ahead of Giles, whose coaching he had also enjoyed during the Champions Trophy.

The truth is that no one knows for sure until the interviews are completed, with an announcement expected next week. The stakes for Giles are high as unlike the other contenders, he would not have a job to fall back on – although there has already been some chatter tipping him to replace Moores at Lancashire or even Robinson at Hove if, as is being whispered around the county circuit, the ECB asks them to recreate their successful Sussex combination. The spectre of September 2011 is looming large.